Richard Buckner released his most recent album, Our Blood, last year on Merge and toured in support of it with labelmate David Kilgour. That tour was supposed to hit The Bell House in August but was cancelled due to the hurricane which cancelled every other show that day too.

Richard Buckner is once again planning a NYC show, which is set to happen on January 19 at Symphony Space for the "Rebels + Reds" series which pairs an artist with a wine chosen for the evening by wine connoisseur Keith Beavers. We're giving away a pair of tickets to this show (details on how to enter below) and are also offering the opportunity to purchase tickets at a reduced rate by entering the word "VEGAN" when purchasing tickets (you enter the code towards the end of checkout).

The Symphony Space show is one of few shows he has scheduled at the moment. All dates and contest details below...

Continue reading "Richard Buckner playing shows -- one at Symphony Space (win tix OR buy them at a reduced rate)"

Evacuate to the Bell House tonight (8/26) to catch a show by punk veterans Deniz Tek & Ivan Julian, but then stay away for the rest of the weekend because David Kilgour & Richard Buckner and the rest of Saturday & Sunday's shows at both the Bell House and Union Hall are all cancelled.

With our Ted Leo show cancelled too, there's now a lot less music to see in Park Slope this weekend.

DOWNLOAD: RIchard Buckner - "Traitor" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: David Kilgour - "Chord" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: David Kilgour - "Son of God" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: David Kilgour - "Sept 98" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: David Kilgour - "BBC World" (MP3)

Richard Buckner

RIchard Buckner is releasing his new LP Our Blood on August 2 via Merge. You can pre-order the album at the Merge webstore now and check out the lead track, "Traitor," above.

He'll go on an August tour in support of the album with his Merge labelmate David Kilgour of The Clean. That tour hits NYC on August 27 at The Bell House. Tickets are on sale now. Richard Buckner will also play Truck America in the Catskills in September. All dates are listed below.

David Kilgour offers some free song downloads on his website of songs not available elsewhere. Grab a few of those tracks above. David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights' new CD Left by Soft is out now on Merge where you can also stream it.

All tour dates and a video of David performing the title track on his new album, below...

Continue reading "Richard Buckner & David Kilgour going on tour, have new albums on Merge (MP3 & dates)"

The Hold Steady at Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 (more)

Last month, we announced that Truck America is returning to the Catskills in September (the 9th through the 11th) and will be headlined by The Hold Steady and Okkervil River. The only other confirmed bands at the time were Ra Ra Riot and Wye Oak. The lineup has since been updated to include Fruit Bats, Vetiver, The Felice Brothers, CItay, Gary Higgins, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Takka Takka, Hospitality, The Low Anthem and others. Check out the full list below. Early bird tickets are still on sale.

For The Low Anthem, it's one of many dates they just announced including one at Terminal 5 with Iron & Wine.

Speaking of The Hold Steady, frontman Craig Finn posted to his Tumblr that he's making a solo album:

"I'm in Austin TX for a few weeks. Making a record. Staying in a friend's guest house. Got here yesterday. So far so good. I'll be tracking the progress here."

Check out the full Truck America lineup update below...

Continue reading "Truck America expands lineup, Craig Finn working on solo LP"

Seven remaining mystery Yo La Tengo mixtape makers take note. According to eHow, if you want to "Make A Sad Bastard Mix Tape" you should,

"Program a few (relatively) uptempo songs into the mix. This might sound counterintuitive, but you will want to vary the pace of your mix tape so as to avoid having it turn into a "saddest music in the world" contest with the songs canceling each other out. A showdown between Richard Buckner's "22" and The Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes" is not what you want here. Yo La Tengo, Josh Rouse, and Ryan Adams are all excellent candidates for this job. RECOMMENDED: "Directions" by Josh Rouse; "To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high)" by Ryan Adams; "The Lie and How We Told It" by Yo La Tengo.

Yo La Tengo continue their run of Hanukkah shows with mystery openers tonight (12/2). Richard Buckner appears in town for a one-off show at Mercury Lounge on Friday (12/3).

Don't be sad, but check out the video of Richard performing "22" in 1994, below..

Continue reading "Richard Buckner is around this week too"

Tift Merritt @ Stuy High School in 2009 (more by Chris La Putt)

"[Mixtapes were] how I was introduced to music that has been so important to me," she tells The Boot. "Someone made me a mix of Maria McKee and Lone Justice, and someone made me a tape that had Mary Lou Lord, Big Star and the Jayhawks. I was 18 years old -- I didn't know about these people. I just found so much neat new music that way because people really did this kind thing."

The North Carolinian would revisit the subject on 'Mixtape,' one of 12 songs from her new album, 'See You on the Moon.' While some of the country elements that have long been associated with her music can be heard on the record, 'See You on the Moon' also reflects a continued evolution in her sound and approach.

Tift's new record, See You on the Moon came out June 1st on Fantasy Records/Concord, and features production by Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens, Laura Veirs, Spoon) and guest spots by Jim James and pedal steel guitarist Greg Leisz.

After her Hiro Ballroom show, Tift's next two dates in Massachusetts are with somber songwriter Richard Buckner. Buckner also has a string of June tour dates (and some in September too) coming up - he opens for Jay Farrar at Bowery Ballroom on June 4th and at Maxwell's on June 5th.

Full tour dates for Merritt (who opens for Amos Lee at Westhampton Beach PAC on Long Island on July 2nd), Collett and Buckner are below...

Continue reading "Tift Merrit released an album, playing shows w/ Jason Collett & Richard Buckner (who's playing this weekend w/ Jay Farrar)"

Hopscotch Music Fest will be happening at ten venues in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, September 9th-11th. The three-day fest's two headlining shows are Panda Bear & Broken Social Scene with The Rosebuds on September 10th, and Public Enemy with No Age & The Love Language on September 11th. Other acts at the fest include Tortoise, Akron/Family, Best Coast, Burning Star Core, Atlas Sound, Fucked Up, Harvey Milk, Lucero and 9th Wonder. The lengthy full list is below. Tickets are on sale now.

Panda Bear's only other tour date currently is at Pitchfork Music Fest on July 17th in Chicago.

Another person at the fest with only a handful of shows beforehand is songwriter Richard Buckner. As of now he has four gigs before Hopscotch in September, and one comes Saturday, April 17th at Union Hall in Brooklyn with Willy Vlautin of Richmond Fontaine. Tickets are on sale.

Richard Buckner hasn't had much in the way of news since three of his older records got reissued by this label Merge last year. He did stop by for a Daytrotter session that was posted March.

The list of bands at Hopscotch and Richard Buckner tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Hopscotch Music Fest in North Carolina has Panda Bear, Public Enemy, BSS & Richard Buckner (who plays other dates first)"

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Gauzy Dress in the Sun" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Emily Sparks" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Born in to Giving It Up" (MP3)

Earlier this year, Merge released three of Buckner's out-of-print recordings, "Bloomed," "The Hill," and "Impasse" as digital downloads, and he went out on a tour in April. But before that, he'd been on hiatus, mostly because he was getting "freaked-out about by crowds," he says.

A couple of years ago, he moved from an apartment in the tough Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn to a house in Kingston, N.Y., a small town on the Hudson River, where he lives with his girlfriend, Jill, a textile artist.

Lately, he's been working day jobs to make ends meet, including a stint on a road crew, which he hated. "When I got home at night, all I wanted to do was drink vodka and go to bed and cry."

He liked driving a forklift much better. "It's a fun job. You're driving backwards and lifting things.

Still, last year, Buckner completed a solo score for the film "Dream Boy," based on the 1995 novel by Atlanta writer and Emory professor Jim Grimsley.

"It was really a cool, new way to do music," Buckner says. "It set me off in another direction, once I got back to my own stuff. I'm catching up on a couple of years of ideas and getting them together for the next record." [Access Atlanta]

Buckner will play a late show at NYC's Mercury Lounge on Saturday, December 5th. Tickets are on sale. One night before he's scheduled for Arlington, and those are his only dates as of now. Buckner's next album, a followup to 2006's Meadow, is scheduled to come out on Merge in 2010.

All tour dates and live clips from his recent fall dates (including top numbers "Ed's Song" and "A Chance Council") are below...

Continue reading "Richard Buckner playing Mercury Lounge, working on a new album, driving a forklift"

by Andrew Frisicano

Mac and Britt embrace (Triangle Music)

The much anticipated XX Merge Festival took place last week in North Carolina with a five-day (July 22-July 26), Wednesday to Sunday run of shows. Last night (Sunday)'s show with She & Him, American Music Club and Wye Oak was the only fully announced lineup. The other four nights (and one day) were a grab bag of any number of Merge bands past and present. Did you go? What were the highlights?

Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band, who recently played a pair of big NY shows, headlined the fest's first night (which also included Magnetic Fields). Superchunk, which features Merge founders Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan, topped the bill of the second night. The third night included the reformed/reunited lineups of Spent, Polvo and Pipe.

Mac McCaughan came out on stage before [Pipe] instead of the night's emcee and announced that there was a lone protester outside. He invited him up on stage and it was Jon Wurster decked out in Phillies gear as Philly Boy Roy. He was holding a sign that said "Boycot MERGE." He complained that Merge didn't have any Philly bands on their roster and Mac said that they have bands from Jersey, which is close to Philly. You never compare Jersey to Philly in front of Philly Boy Roy. It was hilarious.

All of this led to the introduction of New Jersey punks Pipe. As soon as they kicked into their first song, beer cans and plastic bottles started flying. Frontman Ron Liberti ate it up and even put himself in the line of fire, headbutting some of the cans while kicking some back into the crowd. Liberti bounded around the stage, essentially taunting the crowd. The crowd loved the band's antics as did I (but that may have been different if I hadn't managed to stay dry). [triangle music]

In addition to the Cat's Cradle shows (the venue for 4/5 of the night shows), Saturday featured a day show that included Julian Koster solo as Music Tapes and Mac McCaughan with violin accompaniment as Portastatic. A few videos from that set, below.

M. Ward, who's playing the Central Park Summerstage this Saturday (August 1st), played at the fest's Saturday night showcase. Zooey Deschanel joined him for a cover of the Beatles' "Birthday." Not too big of a surprise considering She & Him headlined the Sunday night show.

Other XX Merge artists who recently stopped in NYC include The Clientele and Richard Buckner (they played Music Hall of Williamsburg last Sunday), Versus and Superchunk (they played South Street Seaport last Friday), and Spent (they played Coco 66). Spoon didn't play a NYC show, but they were spotted in the audience of Paul McCartney's third of three shows at Citi Field in Queens. Destroyer is on his way up. He plays Bowery Ballroom on Thursday. Mark Eitzel (as American Music Club) played Le Poisson Rouge and Maxwell's before XX Merge, and now he's on his way back for a show at The Bell House.

Lineups for each night of XX Merge, with videos, and a bunch of setlists, below...

Continue reading "Merge celebrated their 20th w/ 5 days of shows in North Carolina (lineups, reviews, pics, video setlists...)"

by Bill Pearis

Wispy Brits The Clientele play Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn on July 19 with Richard Buckner opening. Tickets are on sale. It's a quick stop in NYC for both artists who will be on their way to the Merge Twentieth Anniversary Music Festival which happens in Carboro, North Carolina from July 22-26.

Superchunk and Versus have a similar pre-XX Merge stop planned in NYC at South Street Seaport on July 17.

The Clientele have also finished recording their new album for Merge which is titled Bonfires on the Heath and should be out in October. Frontman Alasdair MacLean recently talked with Pitchfork about what we can expect. In addition to relating a story of getting dosed with LSD and its affect on the album, he implies Bonfires may be, just maybe, The Clientele's last...

Continue reading "the Clientele & Richard Buckner in Brooklyn before XX Merge "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Gauzy Dress in the Sun" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Emily Sparks" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Richard Buckner - "Born in to Giving It Up" (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Arbouretum - "False Spring" (MP3)

Modern troubadour Richard Buckner will play a Friday, March 20th NYC show at Mercury Lounge with Arbouretum, Ruby Throat, and Lia Ices
(tickets on sale) before heading out an April/May US tour in support of three previously out-of-print, Merge-reissued CDs.

Bloomed, The Hill, and Impasse are all up now as digital downloads on the Merge online store. In his extended take on the old discs (read it below), Buckner writes that he plans to release a new record on the label in 2010, his first since 2006's Meadow.

Opening the Mercury Lounge show is Arbouretum, who just released a new album, Song of the Pearl, on March 9th on Thrill Jockey. Check out the first track on the album, "False Spring", above.

"For two albums, a split EP, and who knows how many lineup changes, Arbouretum has reached further and further inward, honing and intensifying an idiosyncratic sound that is both doomy and folky, visceral and transcendent. They're powerful songs that sound both angry and melancholic, yet carry a sort of internal hypnotic, pacifying churn. The band's newest release, Song of the Pearl, is its most refined and to-the-point--the noodling of 2007's Rites of Uncovering is gone, the stylistic experiments are exhausted."
[Baltimore City Paper]

Buckner reissued press release and vids, and all tour dates below...

Continue reading "RICHARD BUCKNER - reissues, new album, a NYC show with ARBOURETUM & other 2009 Tour Dates"

photos by Chris La Putt

Nada Surf

Frank Bango

(Dean and) Britta

Nada Surf (acoustic), Dean & Britta, Richard Buckner, Sam Champion, Scott Matthew, Tara Angell & David Poe, Simone White and Frank Bango himself performed at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Tuesday night in order to raise money for Frank Bango.

Bango, who has just completed nearly two years of cancer treatments, is incredibly grateful for the generosity of The Bowery and his friends. The Bowery Ballroom has been Frank's home as a bartender, bar manager, musician and fan for almost ten years.

Continue reading "Frank Bango benefit show @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC - pics"

"In 1993, Williams' life took a dramatic turn when she learned that she was suffering from multiple sclerosis. In 1993, an array of artists from different genres, including Pearl Jam, Lou Reed, Maria McKee, Soul Asylum, Lucinda Williams and others, joined together to record some of Williams' songs for a tribute/benefit project called Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams. This led to the creation of the Sweet Relief Fund, a charity that aids professional musicians (of any stature) in need of health care. That year, Williams also released a new album herself, entitled Loose. Pearl Jam had covered her song "Crazy Mary" for Sweet Relief, however, Williams performed her own version of the song, and made a video that brought her closer to public notice and gained her more of a following after it ran on MTV and VH1 in 1994, and is still played on both cable channels." [Wikipedia]

Friends & Family,

We have set up a benefit show for our dear friend Frank Bango @ The Bowery Ballroom for Tuesday August 26th. As some of you may or may not know Frank is sick and we're going to raise some money so he can get better and pay his American doctors. If we lived in France or Cuba or Canada there would be no need for this kind of thing.

Tickets are going on sale tomorrow (7/17 at noon) and we hope you all go buy yours in advance as it will probably sell out. Frank has a million friends and we were able to nail down some impressive talent.

The Frank Bango Bone Marrowthon / Stem Cellebration Benefit with music from:

Nada Surf
Dean & Britta
Richard Buckner
Sam Champion
Luke Rathborne
and many others....

Paypal Donation site and official Bango Benefit site will be up in a few days

DOWNLOAD: Big Dipper - Shes Fetching (MP3)

$493??? Well, it is for charity, so that's good. For a more affordable donation, the David Kilgour autographed poster is still available for less than $50. David Kilgour plays Cake Shop tonight, tomorrow and the next day. Keep checking Merge's auctions through Christmas - they'll also be selling posters autographed by Robert Pollard, M. Ward, Oakley Hall, Spoon, The Rosebuds, Superchunk, Portastatic, and Destroyer. Or just screw charity, and check out Merge's holiday sale.

Robert Pollard is having an art show at Studio Dante in Manhattan in December. Listen to Spoon on NPR. Big Dipper is releasing an anthology. Polvo are reuniting for ATP. Every single Merge tour date, below...

Continue reading "signed Arcade Fire poster @ $493, Robert Pollard art"